Abstract:
This paper addresses two topics which essentially compliment each
other. The first is the empirical investigation of the relationship between
aggregate agricultural productivity and poverty in Pakistan through the
course of time. The second is the estimation of the central inputs or
determinants of agricultural production, again on an aggregate level and
through time. The main empirical findings of this research suggest that
increases in agricultural productivity have alleviated poverty in Pakistan but
not to the extent to which the negative forces of a high population growth
and increasing food prices have worsened its incidence. In the case of the
determinants of agricultural productivity, the results show that accompanied
with the size of the cropped area, fertiliser off-take has played the most
significant and powerful role in increasing agricultural productivity through
time in Pakistan, especially at the onset of the Green Revolution __ the
introduction of High Yield Variety crops and seeds in the late sixties.
